Fight a war? Soon our tiny army will barely be up to Trooping the Colour

Like many of my generation, as a child I adored the Royal Tournament, the Armed Forces’ annual circus at Earls Court: the Royal Navy’s field gun competition, King’s Troop’s musical ride, motorbike daredevilry and massed bands.

The Tournament was scrapped for more than a decade until it was revived last year, because more than 1,000 servicemen and women who took part could no longer be spared.

What was lost in that time was an inspiration to the young. In the same way, the sale of city centre barracks and parade grounds has removed soldiers from millions of civilians’ daily sight: they have become as distant as Martians.

Cutbacks: Defence Secretary Philip Hammond has announced the execution of 17 Army units and a reduction in strength by 20,000 between now and 2020

The Ministry of Defence is now considering selling off Knightsbridge Barracks, presumably to a billionaire sheikh. The Household Cavalry would be trucked into central London to perform public duties, just like King’s Troop, evicted from their traditional home in St John’s Wood.

The message, from a Conservative-led Government, is that absolutely everything which might raise a few quid is up for sale. The party that once recognised defence as a vital national interest has now crunched numbers and told the British Army: ‘Sorry, chaps. You cost too much. We need the money to fund the overseas aid budget.’

Thus yesterday, Defence Secretary Philip Hammond announced the execution of 17 units and a reduction in strength by 20,000 between now and 2020. ‘We need to transform the Army’, he said, ‘and build a balanced, capable and adaptable force ready to face the future’.

In truth, Hammond is doing the same job as a surgeon amputating a man’s leg so he can compete in the Paralympics. The cuts mean an 82,000-strong Army will be able to deploy only a single battle group of 7,000-8,000 men for sustained operations overseas. Britain had four times that many soldiers in Ulster at the height of the Troubles, and almost three times as many in the first Gulf war. Britain’s future army will be slightly smaller than Greece’s.

The government view is that we are in desperate financial straits, having inherited from Labour a catastrophic defence overspend. Moreover, the Army’s reputation has suffered from perceived failure in Iraq and Afghanistan, even if it was politicians who made our soldiers go there.Siren voices, including those of sailors and airmen, whisper to ministers: ‘Soldiers are always talking about needing the capability to put boots on the ground, but we’ve had lots of boots in Basra and Helmand, and they haven’t done us much good.’

The Government is convinced that, once we get out of Afghanistan, it will never repeat such folly, so we no longer need many soldiers. Some of us urge ministers to consider history: many governments many times have kidded themselves the Army would never need to fight again, and have repeatedly been proved wrong.

Events have a way of forcing nations’ hands, whether we like it or not. The irresponsibility of these cuts is they remove from governments’ hands freedom of choice about our role in future national emergencies or international crises. They amount to a declaration that we are resigning from being a capable warrior nation. Maybe this makes sense in the 21st century, though not to me. But do not let the Government kid you that in future we shall have a serious Army, because we shall not. That is certainly what the Americans think.

Commanders have struggled manfully to make sense of these cuts, because that is their job. General Nick Carter, who drew up the plan they call Army 2020, is one of our ablest soldiers. But he was set an impossible task, to meet politically-set manpower targets, rather than consider Britain’s real troop needs.

Downing Street insisted the Scottish regiments must be preserved almost untouched, even though they are hopelessly under-recruited. Young Scots nowadays only want to fight the English; tartan units depend on Fijians to make up their strength.

Logic argues the Gurkhas should be wound up: with only two battalions, and thanks to Joanna Lumley’s fierce lobbying for their interests, they are now exorbitantly expensive. But a terror that Ms Lumley would take to the streets again made it impossible to axe the much-loved Nepalese soldiers.So the county regiments are suffering the big hit. We are told that in future, reservists and contractors will take up the slack, but I will believe this when I see it.

Decision: In truth Mr Hammond, centre, is doing the same job as a surgeon amputating a man's leg so he can compete in the Paralympics

TA units are heavily short of numbers, too. Life is quite different from what it was when I was a young ‘Terrier’. Everybody works so hard at their jobs and has so many commitments that it is very hard to imagine TA units being able to deploy effectively for tours overseas.

Society’s best and brightest will be unable to give the TA the sort of time the Army 2020 plan imagines, because few employers will let them — and the Government will face bitter criticism if it does not honour its promise to ensure that the army reserve becomes credible. Unless the TA can reinforce the regulars, a huge ‘if’, then this week’s ‘restructuring’ will be exposed as a political charade.

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Meanwhile, the Army faces a big challenge, to convince prospective recruits the service will still offer a worthwhile future after withdrawal from Afghanistan. The thrill of fighting — a big draw to a generation of adventurous young men — will be gone. British soldiers will return to the garrison life of the Sixties, without all the exotic overseas postings then on offer, in Hong Kong and suchlike.

And while we will find it increasingly hard to recruit new men, at the other end of the spectrum a squeeze on the conditions and perks of regular Army officers is having a big negative impact. The British Army always has outstanding leadership because officers enjoy a decent lifestyle and can educate their children privately. Not for much longer.

Going: The Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, 5th Battalion The Royal Regiment of Scotland will be reduced to a public duties company

Gloom about prospects is causing a haemorrhage of good men — the last three commanders of the SAS quit the service as soon as they finished their tours. So all in all, this Government has woefully failed to get to grips with defence, admittedly left in a wretched state by Labour.

The Navy’s two futile aircraft-carriers are being built at stupendous cost in Rosyth, even though we cannot afford appropriate aircraft to fly off them, nor more than a handful of other ships at sea.

David Cameron’s determination to accept the huge cost of replacing the Trident nuclear deterrent means that five years hence, we shall have a tiny army barely capable of Trooping the Colour; two giant carriers in mothballs or with almost empty flight decks; some fast jets; and nuclear capacity to obliterate Moscow if we feel in the mood.

What we shall have lost are flexible and effective Armed Forces of the kind this country has always been able to take pride in. I sympathise with the Defence Secretary, Philip Hammond, an able man merely handed an axe with his job, and also our generals, who are forced to keep smiling under surgery without anaesthetic.

No other spending department has been punished as brutally as the Ministry of Defence for the past profligacy of Gordon Brown. I love the British Army, and lament its serial abuse by successive governments. This is not mere nostalgia, but concern for this country’s vital interests: we shall live to be very sorry for what is being done to Britain’s soldiers.

There will come a time when we badly need them once more — and pitifully few will still be there to answer the bugle.